"Witcher 2" pub threatens pirates while eschewing DRM

By Kyle Orland

In the never-ending battle between software pirates and PC game makers, Polish "The Witcher 2" publisher CD Projekt Red has come down firmly against the kind of invasive digital rights management (DRM) protections favored by many game makers.

But that doesn't mean the publisher is willing to simply allow illegal copies of its games to flourish online. The company recently confirmed it has been contacting thousands of alleged German pirates demanding penalties of over $1185?for their ill-gotten games.

"As you know, we aren't huge fans of any sort of DRM here at CD Projekt Red," the company told industry site Eurogamer. "DRM itself is a pain for legal gamers ??the same group of honest people who decided that our game was worth its price, and went and bought it. We don't want to make their lives more difficult by introducing annoying copy protection systems."

"However, that shouldn't be confused with us giving a green light to piracy," the company continued. "We will never approve of it, since it doesn't only affect us but has a negative impact on the whole game industry.

Piracy has become a major problem for PC game publishers, and "The Witcher 2" hasn't been immune from the trend. CD Projekt Red CEO and Co-founder?Marcin?Iwinski recently estimated the game saw at least 4.5 million illegal downloads via BitTorrent, compared to?roughly a million legitimate sales.

Despite those figures, Iwinski said at the time he still doesn't think technical DRM solutions to stop piracy are worthwhile. Such solutions always end up either too light, and therefore easy for pirates to circumvent, or else so invasive they get in the way of enjoyment by legitimate customers, Iwinski said.

It's a valid concern?? publishers including EA and Ubisoft have faced vocal customer backlash for piracy-prevention schemes that require a persistent internet connection during play or that install harmful, hard-to-remove rootkits on players' systems.

But where technical measures fail, CD Projekt Red seems more than willing to try out legal measures instead, even though its fully aware such efforts may hurt the company's image.?"We've seen some of the concern online about our efforts to thwart piracy, and we can assure you that we only take legal actions against users who we are 100 per cent sure have downloaded our game illegally," the company told Eurogamer.

It's an interesting piracy-fighting balancing act, and one that game-makers of all stripes are going to have to address if they want to take part in the PC game market.

Related stories:

Kyle Orland has written hundreds of thousands of words about gaming since he started a Mario fan site at the age of 14. You can follow him on?Twitter?or at his personal website,?KyleOrland.com.

Source: http://ingame.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/15/9473369-witcher-2-pub-threatens-pirates-while-eschewing-drm

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3 children, 2 adults reportedly shot dead

NBC Chicago

Authorities investigate the shooting deaths of five people, including three children, in Emington, Ill.

By NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services

Five people, including three children, were found shot to death Friday afternoon at a home in the small town of Emington, Ill., NBCChicago.com reported.

The bodies of a woman, a girl and a baby were found in the backyard of home. A man and a boy were found nearby. All had been shot, officials said. The names of the victims haven't yet been publicly released.

The Chicago Tribune quoted Debbie Delaney, secretary and treasurer of the?town, as saying the girl was in second grade and the boy was in kindergarten. The Tribune said?her husband is Emington Mayor Daniel Delaney and her son is a?firefighter called to the scene.

"They're all gone, all gone," Delaney told the Tribune.

Livingston County board member Bob Young, who lives in Emington, about 80 miles southwest of Chicago, said?the family had moved to the town within the last six months and the two older children attended school in nearby Saunemin. The street where the family lived was closed by police, he said.

"We did have an awful disaster here," said?Mayor?Delaney, who's been in office for 24 years. "You never would have thought it would happen in our town of 100 people or less. ... Right now it's just very, very, very sad for us here."

Residents described Emington as a once strictly farming town that has gone through changes in the last 20 years as young families moved in.?Young said the town has become more of a bedroom community from which people commute north to cities such as Joliet, about 45 miles away.

Delaney said the town is not prosperous and has received help from the state. "It's always really had a hard time. Most of the people are retired or farmers who moved into town," he said.

Young said he did not know the family well.

"We've seen the kids playing at the playground and talk to them," Young said. "We thought everything was fine."

This article contains reporting from NBCChicago.com, The Associated Press and?msnbc.com staff.

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Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/16/9502464-3-children-2-adults-reportedly-shot-dead-at-illinois-home

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Sony to Launch 3G Tablets Next Month

By PTI, Wednesday, 14 December 2011, 20:13 Hrs

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NEW DELHI: Electronic consumer device maker Sony launched its first tablet PC in India and unveiled 3G tablets which will be launched in the mid of next month.

"Today we are launching tablets that support WiFi connectivity. In mid-January we will launch tablets that will have both 3G connectivity and WiFi. We expect 3G-enabled tablets to contribute 80 percent to our total tablet sales in this financial year," Sony Managing Director Masaru Tamagawa told reporters here.

Sony launched WiFi-enabled tablets, S and P models, based on Google's Android platform at a price starting from 29,990.

"We are in discussion with some operators to bundle these tablets with their services," Tamagawa said.

Sony Tablet P which will be available in 3G version will be first tablet to have dual screen and which can be folded. The dual screen can be used as single and also for two separate functions. This tablet will be launched at price of 36,990.

The company has plans to invest 10 crore in promotion of these tablets in last quarter of this financial year.

"These tablets are compatible with DLNA which will allow user to connect their tablet with other DLNA supporting devices," Sony Corporation's Deputy President for VAIO and Mobile Business Group Hideyuki Furumi said.

DLNA will provide features like watching movie available in the tablet on a DLNA compatible TV or listening to music on speakers supporting DLNA technology within premise of a user.

Both the tablets will be available across 500 stores in India from mid-January, Tamagawa said.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/si-techproduct/~3/r_o_5dOphIw/Sony_to_Launch_3G_Tablets_Next_Month-nid-100593.html

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Sale of Lethal Injection Drug Sodium Thiopental to Be Restricted in Europe (Time.com)

This post is in partnership with Worldcrunch, a new global-news site that translates stories of note in foreign languages into English. The article below was originally published in S?ddeutsche Zeitung.

(BERLIN) -- The European Union is set to restrict the sale to the United States of one of the main active substances needed for lethal injections. According to information obtained by the S?ddeutsche Zeitung, the export of sodium thiopental will only be possible by special permission, beginning Friday, posing a major problem for the US justice system.

The Official Journal of the European Union (OJ) is to publish a new, uniform set of authorized export regulations, valid for all short or intermediate-acting barbituric acids. One of them is the easy-to-use and fast-working anesthetic sodium thiopental, which is used to execute criminals in the states of Ohio and Washington. In 33 other states, sodium thiopental is a key ingredient in other toxic cocktails used to kill inmates. (See TIME's 10 Biggest U.S. News Stories of 2011.)

Approximately 100 people are executed by American authorities every year. But in the past few months, supplies of the drug have become scarce. The only manufacturer based in the US, Hospira, is unwilling to continue to make its product available for lethal injections, and under American law it is not allowed to simply change the injection "recipe." To do that, a complicated approval procedure is required. So authorities -- who have been postponing executions as a result of the difficulty in finding supplies -- have been seeking other sources such as those in the EU.

Anti-death penalty and other human rights groups have pushed for the EU decision to now require special permission to export to countries outside of Europe. The most prominent supporter of the move is Germany's Minister of Economy and head of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), Philipp R?sler. In an earlier role as Minister of Health he had written to German manufacturers of sodium thiopental to encourage them not to sell the drug to the US.

After changing jobs, he introduced to the Commission a bill to create a regulation valid Europe-wide that would effectively prevent the export of thiopental to the US. Initially, the proposal met with resistance from other states, but it has now been approved by the majority of the 27 member states.

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/time/20111216/wl_time/08599210226600

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Space Park in Redondo Beach will get the star treatment

For half a century, the sprawling 110-acre aerospace complex in Redondo Beach has played host to the development of the nation's most advanced and secret spacecraft.

Known as Space Park, the site was built at the height of the Cold War after the launch of Sputnik for engineers to develop a high-powered rocket that could deliver a nuclear warhead 6,000 miles away in less than an hour to virtually wipe out an entire city: the intercontinental ballistic missile.

The complex's 47 buildings have served as a nerve center for the development and construction of high-powered lasers, cutting-edge electronics and sophisticated spacecraft. Satellites developed at the site have explored faraway planets, provided space-based telecommunications for troops on the battlefield and spied on enemies' fortified defense enclaves.

Space Park is also the site of the famed "Falcon and the Snowman" incident, in which a disillusioned young employee with a top security clearance spied for the Soviet Union. Along with an accomplice, he was arrested in 1977 after selling the Soviets thousands of secret documents, including material revealing spy satellite plans. They were convicted and sent to prison.

The incident was featured in a bestselling book and 1985 movie starring Sean Penn and Timothy Hutton.

On Wednesday, the campus will be designated a historic aerospace site in a ceremony by the American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics, the nation's largest society of aerospace engineers and scientists.

In addition to the ICBM, Space Park is the birthplace for the rocket engines that first lowered man onto the moon, instrument packages that scoured Mars' surface for life, and the James Webb Space Telescope, which is now under development to replace the Hubble Space Telescope.

"As a company, we always wanted to recruit the most talented people to take on the government's most important programs," said 98-year-old Simon Ramo, who along with his late colleague Dean Wooldridge bought the land from the Santa Fe Railroad in 1960 for their company, Space Technology Laboratories.

Space Park would eventually become home to TRW Inc. ? the "R" representing Ramo and the "W" Wooldridge. Since 2002, Space Park has been part of aerospace giant Northrop Grumman Corp., which recently moved to its headquarters to Falls Church, Va., from Century City.

Today, about 7,500 people work at Space Park and its 5 million square feet of engineering office space, high-bay assembly areas and clean-room laboratories.

Decades after the Cold War, there are still details of Space Park programs that remain sensitive to national security, and Ramo can't talk about them.

"A lot of amazing things were done there," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org. "Some of those things we might actually find out about. I would guess there's more history there that we don't know about than we do."

Space Park is a key part of California's space industry, along with Boeing Co.'s satellite-making operation in nearby El Segundo and Lockheed Martin Corp.'s missile and space division in Sunnyvale.

The sprawling complex is designed like a college campus ? spread out with gardens and sculptures dotting the landscape. That was by design. Ramo wanted every engineer to have a window and said he wanted to differentiate Space Park from other aerospace companies, which would pack engineers side by side at drafting tables in windowless, musty hangars.

Ramo and Wooldridge had experienced the claustrophobia of such working conditions as colleagues at Hughes Aircraft Co. in Playa Vista, where they had an established record working at the leading edge of the new field of electronic warfare and guidance systems. The pair walked away from the company and their eccentric boss, Howard Hughes, in 1953 and started their own company.

It wasn't long after they opened for business that President Eisenhower gave the young scientists the task of developing the ICBM. With that responsibility came a reputation as a national leader in space technology.

"Everyone knew that if you were working for us on the ICBM program, you were working on the top-priority program in the country," Ramo said.

One of their recruits was Bruce Gerding, now a vice president of Northrop's aerospace systems unit who joined TRW in 1970. He has been based at Space Park for more than four decades.

"I always thought of Space Park as an aerospace Camelot," he said. "When you think about the legacy of Space Park, it's not the lasers or satellites that we've built here. It's the people who built and developed the technology."

Loren Thompson, defense policy analyst for the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va., said that Space Park has had a concentration of skills that can't be trumpeted because of national security secrets. But those in the defense industry know its importance: "People in Space Park accomplish missions that no one else in the world can accomplish."

william.hennigan@latimes.com

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/science/~3/WR37a6GopGI/la-fi-space-park-20111214,0,4093061.story

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'Last of Us' wants to set new gaming standard | TG Daily

One of the most anticipated games heading to the PS3 will be more than just a game, according to the publisher's lofty promotional speak.

Naughty Dog, which is known most recently for the PS3-exclusive Uncharted series, is working on a new game called The Last of Us.

The publisher describes the game as "a genre-defining experience that blends survival and action elements to tell a character driven tale about a modern plague decimating mankind."

Just what is so genre-defining about it? Naughty Dog says it's more of an experience than a game, because players have complete freedom as they explore and solve the underlying mystery.

"We're trying to move the medium of video games into an area elevated in the same manner of respect of film. We want to redefine what our medium is even called. 'Video game' is not an accurate name anymore. It is not necessarily a game with rules and a winner and a loser. It's an experience," said Naughty Dog co-president Christophe Balestra in a USA Today interview.

If this whole idea of a game being as artistic and masterful as a movie sounds familiar to you, you're not alone. It's been a mantra of Sony and the PS3 since the system was first introduced. It's long been a goal of Sony to 'blur the line' between movies and video games, allowing gamers to feel like they're stepping right into a cinematic experience.

Of course, while video game graphics have improved incredibly over the last few years, it's still very easy to tell what is a game and what's a computer-animated motion picture. That line will only continue to be wiped away, though, and Naughty Dog hopes The Last of Us is remembered as one of the milestone titles as the industry heads in that direction.

Source: http://www.tgdaily.com/games-and-entertainment-brief/60174-last-of-us-wants-to-set-new-gaming-standard

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Where Would Ron Paul Slash $1 Trillion from the Federal Budget? (ContributorNetwork)

GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul released a new commercial pledging to slash $1 trillion in federal spending during the first year of his presidency. How does the Texas Congressman plan to do that?

Here's a look at Ron Paul's proposed cuts:

Medicaid, children's health care, food stamps

Politico reported Paul has claimed he would strip these programs from mandatory federal spending and reassign them to the individual states in the form of block grants. Paul opposes Obamacare, but National Journal reported he would not seek to immediately change health coverage for the elderly and children.

Pentagon

Paul told The Quad-City Times two months ago that $200 billion could be cut from the Defense Department. He has frequently campaigned to close U.S. foreign bases and, as Associated Press reported, to bring all American troops home "as soon as the ships could get there."

Foreign Aid

Paul would reduce all foreign aid to zero, Politico reported. The move would save up to $139 billion per year from known sources, excluding any foreign aid buried inside other agency budgets. Paul said the U.S. government cannot afford to spend money on foreign aid every year.

Cutting federal employees

Paul has proposed eliminating 221,000 federal jobs -- all of which he deems nonproductive -- from five Cabinet level departments (Interior, Energy, Education, Commerce and Housing and Urban Development). According to The Hill, Paul would target nonproductive jobs and continue to eliminate federal jobs wherever they do not serve the national interest.

Cut president's salary

Paul recommends reducing the president's salary from $400,000 a year to $39,336 a year, roughly the median income of an average American worker, according to a report by USA Today. The last president to earn a salary that low was Ulysses S. Grant in 1873, when he earned $50,000 per year.

Dan McGinnis is a freelance writer, published author and former newspaper publisher. He has been a candidate, campaign manager and press secretary for state and local political campaigns for more than 30 years.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111205/pl_ac/10607351_where_would_ron_paul_slash_1_trillion_from_the_federal_budget

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